Wrathgate Wednesday: Late Late Edition

Wednesdays on WTTRP is to show case how the Wildfire Riders addressed the Wrathgate Cinematic as a guild.

Dravir, before he was officially inducted into the Riders, was purchased in a rigged game of cards. So he is at the front, with his employer and “work friends” in the thick of the fighting.

–

He had screamed himself raw, to be heard over the lash and thunder of the battle; if blood had flew from his mouth with the spittle, he’d not have been surprised. His hands, when they weren’t shaking, were stiff as claws from loading and winching the ballistae half a hundred times. Errant ice shards had scored his side and left a raw, bleeding gash alongside his neck, probably three lucky inches from death.

And still, Tarquin ap Danwyrith managed to laugh when the great colossus toppled with burning bolts in its joints, and laugh again when Chryste plummeted from the sky to splinter its fused bones and stretch it on the valley floor. Beside him rose Ilarra’s shrill giggle, and some impenetrable Northdale cursing from Isi Underhill. They were turning them – maybe only a small piece, aye, less than a fingernail on a single hand, but they were fucking well doing it! “Fuckin’ aye, Kaleigh, fuckin’ aye!” he screamed, knowing it’d be lost to the wind and not caring.

Bricu’s snarling voice, though, was perfectly audible. “The fuckin’ circus in town, then?” He stamped up next to them, axe slung over his back, gauntleted hands flexing unconsciously. “Or are yeh just soddin’ off?”

“Ah, piss off, Bittertongue,” retorted the younger man with fierce good nature. “We got the bugger, did we no’?”

The paladin snorted, already moving to the rack of ammunition next to the empty bolt-throwers. “I stand corrected, then. Battle’s fuckin’ over. Who’s fer some tea?”

“Oh, yeh’ll ha’ some fuckin’ tea aright, arsehole!” Tarquin moved past him adroitly, grinning savagely – that was certainly the taste of blood in his mouth – and taking hold of the iron-shod spear. The motions of the past…however long it had been, had become second nature to him. Load up. Winch. Slam home. Cock. Aim -

Tarquin scowled and scanned the threshing mass below him. Crouched in the rubble of an ice shelf that had splintered at some point during the battle, a violet-cowled man of ponderous bulk reached out towards the lines some sixty feet from him. Tenebrous malice shimmered around his hands, gathered like swarming locusts -

- “Oh, thit’s a fuckin’ beauty” -

- and then the air whistled, and the man collapsed about quivering steel, squelching like a ripe tomato. “Hah!” crowed the Oathbreaker. “Take thit t’yir tea party, Bric’, an -” He saw the expression on Bricu’s face, felt the trembling of the ground, and was moving before Bricu roared for it. But quick as he was, even past thirty, the earth fell away under his feet. He heard Isi’s shrieked curse, Ilarra’s half-gleeful wail, and the buzzing bellow from beneath his feet, but had no time to put these all together into anything coherent. He scrabbled wildly at the snow, and then a plated fist slammed brutally into his arm and yanked him to the doubtful safety of the hilltop. His eyes lit on Threnn, awkward in her split-sided armor, moving forward with her hand on the sword at her hip.

Oh piss.

–

Dravir

A half mile from the Riders, the tide of vrykul crashed upon the mercenary line like a stormfront. Screams of pain and the sound flesh being cleaved, of blood bubbling through horrific wounds drew a collective groan of despair from many of the hired blades, but from one combatant, there was only mad, demonic laugher.

Drenched in gore from slaughtered cultists, the orc ran head-on into the fight. While the heads of the vrykul were slightly out of reach, their long beards provided an excellent source of leverage, and so the first died, a massive axe crunching through his skull. Snaga screamed for the blood of his foes as he rode the corpse to the ground. His mighty blade chopped out again and again, shattering the spear shafts and heavy clubs that sought his own heart, and repaying the violence in kind. Limbs were shattered and body cavities opened to the merciless air. The orc threw back his head and howled, his eyes aglow a terrible red. This was true battle!

This was what he was born for! What he was born to die for!

“Blood and Death! Come to me!”

Snaga leapt from the pile of corpses, and roared as he reaped a bloody tall.

Behind him, the line was holding, barely. Dravir spat into the bloody mud, dodging another blow that would have cleaved him in half. His axe slammed against the beast’s greaves, the biting edge turned, but the knee gave way with a sickening pop, sending the giant to the ground, to be stabbed and pummelled to death. A blast of channeled light stunned another, allowing two draenei to near slash it in two. He blocked a thrusting harpoon with the haft of his axe, rolling his wrists to spin the weapon around and over to chop into his foes skull. A sword smashed into his pauldron, the heavy metal crumpling like parchment, and he briefly saw the sky as the blow sent him flying back. He rose groggily, staring blankly at the corpses that had cushioned his fall, the entrails and gore that smeared over his once well-kept armour.

Snarling, he charged back into the packed fighters, eyes ablaze as he summoned the Light, the ground underneath suddenly burning the flesh of the enemy all around. Instinct guided his hands and feet, avoiding the most terrible of the attacks. Those that could not be dodged were stopped by axe or armour, but still these took their toll. Blood dripped from a myriad of small wounds, and his arms felt numb and heavy. The vrykul before him snarled and jeered as they came on, slowly crushing the mercenaries with their great height and strength.

His axe flashed through a chest, a leg, crashed against a shield. His feet trampled through the dead, the pulped flesh carpeting the ground. With a grimace, he gave up ground to one monster, blocking and parrying as he tried once more to summon the power of the Light.

Dravir hoped the boss had a really good ace card this time.

—————————————-

No, no. The power must flow like so.

Ah, I see it now.

Yes yes, good good.

Are you sure this is wise?

He has a point…

NO! We do this or our companies will die quickly against such numbers. We are adequately protected and powerful. Just follow the ritual as I have shown.

Five shrewd minds linked as one, focused and calm, despite the battle that raged barely fifty paces from their small, silent bodies. Their bodies positioned to the points of a star, the power which they had been channeling since the first battlecries now rushed to the center, burning runes and symbols into the ground. A gash in the fabric of the world birthed with a scream that shook those not consumed in fighting to the depths of their souls. Within the malignant tear, a pair of burning eyes gazed upon the material world with ancient hunger.

And as one of those minds broke the contact, shrieking in agony as his bodily fluids boiled within his flesh, until he was little more than a steaming husk, the Doomguard stomped forth from the portal, a bestial roar tearing from his fanged maw. Drawing a scimitar that burned with the cold of the void beyond, he leapt into flight, to smash into the ranks of vrykul.

Odurd giggled madly as he let the melding of minds drop, turning his focus to the great demon, directing it to the weakest points of the line. This was turning out to be a decent day after all. Through eldritch eyes of green flame, the goblin warlock guided his demon.

Nearly as tall as the vrykul, the Doomguard sneered at it’s foes, fire roiling forth in an indescriminate wave. Some unwary mercenaries screamed before their flaked away to ash, but the effect on the vrykul was far more pronounced.

Here was a great foe for them to face, and die against.

And here were mortal souls for the Doomguard to reap and devour. Its scimitar began to batter into the roaring horde, and once again, the rear line held.

I like this game. I think I’ll name him… Doomy.

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